The Belgians to the Front | Page 7

gun mounting means, Arthur? Finding it just where we did--in a field that belongs to that house?"
"You mean there may be spies there now?"
"I don't say that they're there now. But I think they have been there. And I know I'm going to find out all we can."
"All right. I think we ought to do that, too. Let's get along! It'll be awfully late when we get into Liege, I'm afraid."
The house that had suddenly assumed such an air of mystery, so great an importance, was dark as they approached. Not a light showed from its windows. But they took no chances, none the less. They got very close to it without detection; they were able to go up to the windows. And, listening there, they heard not a sound inside to indicate that anyone was within.
"I'm going in," said Paul, suddenly. "Let me have your light, Arthur."
"Can't I come in, too?"
"One of us must stay outside and keep watch," said Paul. "It's the hardest part of the job, Arthur. If you stay outside, watch carefully, especially near the door. Hide, so that you won't be seen, but in a place where you can see anyone who comes. And if anyone is coming, call like a quail. I'll be listening, and I'll slip out of this back window and get back to you. But if they catch me, go back and get the plans, and then hurry into Liege. Tell General Leman, if you can get to him, or a staff officer, if you can't, everything that has happened since we found these papers, whether it seems important to you or not. Something that may not seem to mean anything at all may really be very important."
"But it seems to me you're taking all the risk," protested Arthur. "That isn't fair."
"It's just as risky outside as in," said Paul. "Here goes! Off with you, now, and find a good place to hide! We haven't any time to lose, I can tell you. If there's no one inside now, they won't leave a place like this deserted very long, I'm sure."
Arthur went off reluctantly, but, as usual, he obeyed Paul to the letter. He found a clump of bushes from which, without being seen himself, he could watch the door of the house, and there he crouched down to wait. It was dull work, and, after he had once settled himself, he was afraid to move lest unseen eyes be watching somewhere in the neighborhood.
Meanwhile Paul was busy getting into the house. It was easier than he had thought it likely to be. The catch on the window was simplicity itself and he forced it with his penknife without any difficulty at all.
"I feel like a burglar," he thought to himself, as he climbed in. "But I don't care. Even if there's nothing wrong in here, I've got the right, in a time like this, to make sure. Every Belgian has to think of his country first now."
And he was pretty sure that there was a decided connection between this cottage, so strangely stout in its construction, and the unquestionably threatening and sinister discovery he and Arthur had made in the field only a stone's throw away.
Inside, he found himself in a large room that took up all save a very small part of the ground floor of the cottage. To the left there was a wall, and in it an open door--he could see that much through the very faint light that filtered through the windows. Seemingly, he was in luck. There was absolutely nothing to make him doubt that he was alone in the house. Everything was still. There was not even the ticking of a clock, the one sound he might reasonably have expected to hear even in a temporarily deserted house. But he waited for quite a minute, to make sure that no one was about. He felt certain that, had anyone been there, he would have heard breathing, no matter how anxious the other occupant of the house might be to conceal his presence.
Then he switched on the light, shielding it with his hand, so that no reflection of its faint glow should betray him, by means of the windows, to anyone approaching from outside.
About the big room in which he found himself there was nothing to excite suspicion at first sight. The room seemed ordinary enough; the usual living-room of a peasant. One thing was curious; he could see a trap door, evidently leading to a cellar below. But that he reserved for later inspection, preferring at first to look upstairs. He reached the second floor by the stairs; there, too, there seemed at first nothing out of the ordinary. But when he threw aside all scruples and looked everywhere, he found something that confirmed